[AGL] this cant/shouldnt/wont go on much longer

[Jon Ford]

Mike-- I hope the title if  your post predicts the future well, and not just in the West Bank!

Jon


> From: mike.eisenstadt at gmail.com

> To: austin-ghetto-list at pairlist.net

> Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2008 09:10:35 -0600

> Subject: [AGL] this cant/shouldnt/wont go on much longer

> 

> I have become a total junkie about reading the Jerusalem Post and the other

> Israeli newpaper on line. This piece seems to be from the Associated Press.

> It is SO interesting that I could not

> forebear not to share it with you. How amazing the world is! And what a

> pleasure to turn on the computer and read the NYTimes where I did not find

> this article.

> 

> As this is my hobby-horse not yours, i will not inflict it on you anymore

> but just this one last time.

> 

> Mike

> 

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> ------

> >From suicide bomber to peacenik, Shifa al-Qudsi 'thought only of revenge'

> By The Associated Press

> 

> Six years ago, Shifa al-Qudsi was plotting to strap on explosives under a

> maternity dress and blow herself up among Israelis. Now she says she wants

> to meet them.

> 

> Just released from prison at age 30, the former hairdresser insists she has

> no regrets, but says times have changed.

> 

> "I hope to join a peace group," she says.

> 

>      Advertisement

> 

> "I am ready to talk to Israelis, to get closer."

> 

> Her transformation mirrors broader changes in Palestinian society in the

> West Bank, where enthusiasm for an armed uprising against Israel has given

> way to conflict fatigue and even some soul-searching over the use of

> violence.

> 

> Al-Qudsi's story also provides a glimpse of the motives of a suicide bomber

> and how easy it was at one time for militants to recruit young

> Palestinians - mostly men but also a few women - for 131 bombings that have

> killed hundreds of Israelis.

> 

> For al-Qudsi, the personal appeared to intersect with the political. While

> she said she wanted to avenge the suffering inflicted on Palestinians by

> Israeli troops, her ex-employer said al-Qudsi also felt depressed and

> stigmatized by her divorce.

> 

> Interviewed in her parents' home in the West Bank city of Tul Karem,

> al-Qudsi wore a tailored leather coat, pants, stiletto-heeled boots and a

> headscarf that seemed more a nod to social norms than a sign of religious

> piety. She appeared confident and optimistic.

> 

> One of 10 children, she married a cousin at 16, gave birth to a daughter,

> Diana, and divorced after two years when her husband took up with another

> woman. Returning to her parents' home with her baby daughter, al-Qudsi

> started working at a beauty parlor.

> 

> Her former boss, Zahwa Zakallah, described her employees as a fun-loving

> group that would occasionally take day trips, including several to the beach

> at Netanya, an Israeli city 16 kilometers west of Tul Karem that would

> become al-Qudsi's target.

> 

> Life changed after the intifada broke out in 2000. As a wave of bombings and

> shootings by Palestinian militant groups crested, Israeli forces reoccupied

> West Bank towns in a major military offensive. Troops also ringed the

> headquarters of late Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat,

> effectively putting him under house arrest.

> 

> Al-Qudsi said she was increasingly driven by a desire for revenge, and was

> particularly upset by Israel's humiliation of Arafat, a Palestinian icon.

> 

> In early 2002, her 16-year-old brother, Mahmoud, was caught with a suicide

> belt and sentenced to 18 years in prison. And a 27-year-old West Bank

> paramedic became the first female suicide bomber, killing an elderly Israeli

> man in Jerusalem.

> 

> Al-Qudsi said she sought contact with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a

> violent wing of Arafat's Fatah faction. She said she was told to reconsider

> and come back in a month. She persisted and was eventually accepted.

> 

> "I was waiting for the moment I could push the button and see the bodies

> flying," she said.

> 

> Her handlers wanted to send her to the town of Hadera, but al-Qudsi said she

> insisted on Netanya because she knew her way around the town. She was fitted

> for a vest meant to hold 33 pounds of explosives under the maternity dress.

> 

> The plan was for her to be accompanied by a male bomber disguised as an

> Israeli medic who would detonate his explosives minutes after she did, in

> order to kill Israeli rescuers.

> 

> But informers tipped off the Israelis and al-Qudsi was arrested.

> 

> Troops barged into her parents' home one night in April 2002 and drove her

> away. She said they beat her with fists and rifle butts until she reached

> the local army lockup. She quickly confessed, but spent 42 days being

> questioned about who else was involved in the plot.

> 

> In a plea bargain, an Israeli military court sentenced her to six years'

> imprisonment.

> 

> Her lawyer, Khaled Dazuki, said the sentence was relatively light because no

> suicide belt was found. Dazuki believes the plan was in its early stages and

> his client would not have gone through with the attack.

> 

> Al-Qudsi described the Israeli prison as a warren of dirty, vermin-infested

> cells where guards sometimes tear gassed troublesome inmates, including

> herself.

> 

> Now she has a job with a prisoners' aid group, plans to study social work,

> and talks about her eagerness to tell ordinary Israelis her story and hear

> theirs.

> 

> She also struggles to explain her decision to become a bomber.

> 

> Asked how she could leave her young daughter motherless, she said, "God

> would have taken care of her." Yet she also said the worst part of being in

> prison was being away from her child. She and Diana, now 13, are

> inseparable. The teenager says she's thankful her mother is alive, wants

> nothing to do with politics, and dreams of going abroad to study law.

> 

> "I'm not sorry about what happened," al-Qudsi said defiantly. She wanted the

> world to know about the suffering of the Palestinians, but at the time, "I

> didn't think as a human being," she said. "I thought only of revenge."

> 

> "If I had thought it through better, I might not have made this decision.


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